The Quiet Man

The Pool Party.

I needed to repay Mark and Rebecca's hospitality. With Jens help I organized a pool party. I invited people from the office and gym, a few neighbors I'd gotten acquainted with during my runs. We made it a lunch thing since I wanted people to bring their kids. Jen and I fixed a buffet lunch. Jen was staying with me that week some most evenings we cooked and froze a lot of dishes, we even baked bread and cupcakes. Me baking and Jen decorating. I guess we could have catered it all, but we had fun together.

Saturday rolled around. Jen and I were busy all morning setting up the buffet in the kitchen. We set up tables and chairs on the deck around the pool. And then we waited. To my surprise I was nervous. We had had lots of parties before the divorce, but my ex always organized those. This was my first party as bachelor, or rather single parent. At noon people started arriving, first some of the neighbors, then Mark and Rebecca, and their kids. Around 3 o'clock the party was in full roll. The shallow end of the pool was full of kids. At the deep end were the gym people, most of them shapely women in minimal swimsuits. My neighbors where obviously pleased, at least the husbands, the wives not so much. But it was a great party, Jen and I got a lot of compliments for the food. Jen was beaming.

The single people left first. At the end it was just the Johnsons, Jen and I left. We convinced them to stay for dinner, leftovers. As the sun was setting behind the mansion, we sat on the deck with after dinner drinks. The Johnson kids were sleeping on a lounger. Mark and Rebecca sat together in the sofa, I was in a chair, and Jen was on my armrest, her arm over my shoulders. We talked about the party, about work, vacations, politics. Well, Mark and Rebecca did most of the talking with small interjections from me. Jen seemed to enjoy listening to "grown-up" talk.

Rebecca said: "There sure were a lot of sexy women here today. And you work with them, Mark, should I worry?"

"Nah, I've found my sexy woman, so I've stopped looking."

"Oh, I could tell you were looking alright!" Turning to me she continued: "What about you, Jack, I could tell you were looking too. Why don't you ask one of them for a date?"

"Yes, daddy, why don't you. Mom's started dating again." That was news to me, and it disturbed me. It shouldn't, the divorce was final months ago, but it did.

"I don't think I'm ready for dating yet, maybe next year. Besides I'm too old for most of those girls, and I think they'd prefer a beefy guy like Mark and not a couch potato."

"Don't sell yourself short." Rebecca said. "Mark has you whipped into a pretty good shape ."

I tried to change the subject: "I thought the Langdons would show up, Sarah said they'd try to come."

"Better late than never, I hope." There, coming around the corner of the house, was Sarah with Arthur in tow. "I saw Marks truck in the driveway, so I hoped we would not be too late."

"Not at all, were in our second wind now. Where's Frank?"

"Oh, he had some important meeting. We waited all afternoon for him and he never showed." She was not pleased. "So I thought Arthur and I would drive over just for a minute."

"Have you had dinner? We're having leftovers"

"We already ate, but I think I smell coffee?"

"Jen, why don't you get Ms. Langdon a cup of coffee? And maybe Arthur would like one of those cupcakes we baked."

Jen walked over to Arthur and held out her hand for him to take: "Do you want to see all the cupcakes?" He hesitated, but I guess the thought of cakes won him over and he took Jen's hand. As they walked towards the kitchen, Jen called over her shoulder: "How do you like your coffee, Ms. Langdon. Milk and sugar?"

Our marriage might have failed, but our daughter sure came out of it alright, a polite and caring, soon to be woman.

"Just black, thank you, Jen."

Mark and Rebecca raved about the party and all the home-made food. So in the end Sarah went into the kitchen, and came back with a plate.

"Just a sampler plate." She said and patted her stomach and winked.

Mark returned to our previous discussion: "So if you don't want to date yet maybe you should pick up a hobby, to take your mind off things. I know it sounds pathetic, but... "

"You mean something like basket weaving?"

"Joke all you want, but I'm serious. Don't you have some old hobby you could take up again?"

"Well, I was into photography in high school and the first years of college. I still have the cameras and the equipment somewhere."

"There you go! Why not dust them off?"

It was getting late, and the kids needed to go to bed, at least the ones that were not sleeping already. So we said our goodbyes and then everyone left. Jen and I put away the food but decided to leave the cleaning up for the next day.